This is not a game you can actually play in a few minutes a day (unless you somehow manage to always avoid combat).I am not saying this just to be contrarian. I am pointing out that there is a lack of consistency in dev's own vision which really needs to be addressed.

Well that depends. I recall when I started Battlemaster being told his sure it was a game you could play a few minutes a day, but that you would never win doing that. This is not a unique problem, most online games suffer from it. Making a game compelling and accessible for people with different timezones and time to spare is extremely difficult. Making it "fair" as well is simply adding to the difficulty. So the first question is what does an acceptable outcome from that style of play look like.

Minor disaster events, roaming NPC bandits that aren't as terrifying as the real thing for a new knight, tournaments... Even minor beneficial events, like resource stockpiles. I don't know... Peasant riots in unhappy areas. Actual supply lines to be raided or defended.

I especially think the Knight game needs more work. My characters reasonably want power, but as a player I want other players to enjoy the game as well. There's not a ton to do as a knight without estate, and unless someone's really into roleplaying, they may only be fun if you have other characters who own estate and can support them.

Land to colonize, explore, and fight over might be neat. Tenuous holdings that would not be easy to keep one way or another... But that, I am sure, would be difficult to implement in a manner which would be fair long term. This could be one area where you have to worry about NPC army incursions, but then I suspect someone would just find a way to farm experience from them, or that one realm would just gain control and gain even more power.

Trying to create an environment more conducive to intra-sovereign realm conflict would be worthwhile, too, but I really don't know how to do that. With Greater Ryne and Gwent and all going on, I sometimes feel like the wrong people are out to get punished. People obeying their liege are just sticking to their oaths of fealty. A better environment for this sort of thing could see larger realms break into smaller realms long term, unless the ruling parties have a very good grasp of what their feudal chain desires.

Well that depends. I recall when I started Battlemaster being told his sure it was a game you could play a few minutes a day, but that you would never win doing that.

That's not entirely correct either. For rank and file knights it was absolutely sufficient to log in twice a day for 5 minutes. Kings, Generals and Marshals had to log in frequently to succeed in wars. But those were a precious few who consciously took upon themselves this mission. And when those figureheads no longer had time to lead, they could step down and allowed more active players to run the realm. If M&F was anywhere close to that it would solve most of the issues. Most realms can scramble at least one or two active players.

It does not. In M&F you have to babysit the game all the time. Until maneuvres are over and the battle has started. You lose major battles because one person logged in an hour too late and didn't make it exactly in time.In B&M you just need to log once every 12 hours. That's it. Your realm can actually be successful in warfare if you can at least do that.

It does not. In M&F you have to babysit the game all the time. Until maneuvres are over and the battle has started. You lose major battles because one person logged in an hour too late and didn't make it exactly in time.In B&M you just need to log once every 12 hours. That's it. Your realm can actually be successful in warfare if you can at least do that.

Yes, and even then it still fails. I don't know how many times my character and the ruler of our realm have been injured because we're the only two to move right away (e.g. getting on once during that turn after orders had been given). But even in BM, if you get on before let's say 2 hours after a turn change, and the Marshal is usually 3 hours after turn change.... Then you lose those people fairly often.

In M&F, there's about a three hour leeway time for many of the battles where one estate over, on easy terrain, has a chance of reinforcing you.

Perhaps a limited duration follow mechanic might work? The player would have to enable it for their character, and it would only work for a limited time, probably quite a bit more limited than "Military Aid" is. Something designed to assist activity, but not replace it.

I don't see what's so hard about clicking 'military aid' entering a name, and setting a direction to go in. It's not rocket science. When we took Slumberstone one guy literally did this, and was away from the game two weeks. When he came back, he had joined the battle, and read the battle report and was like 'Ok I am going back home now'.

I don't see what's so hard about clicking 'military aid' entering a name, and setting a direction to go in. It's not rocket science. When we took Slumberstone one guy literally did this, and was away from the game two weeks. When he came back, he had joined the battle, and read the battle report and was like 'Ok I am going back home now'.

It's nice it worked out that way for you, but to me it hardly seems like a normal case.

Orders can change, and realistically there's usually about a day of a grace period before things can go wrong if no one follows. But it could easily be less than that.

So what, you all fight without a battle plan or objectives? Just throwing armies after armies on someone and expect them to roll over and die? If you do things this way, no amount of activity will ever decide a war. I suppose having a tool that makes a proper battleplan would be a decent addition to combat the activity issues.

Also, the example I gave is not the only one. This happened plenty of times. The only person who needs to be online 24/7 is the 'catcher'. The rest just check in once in a while, and make sure they are going the right direction. I am sure De-Legro, who has had a lot more fights than me can write two pages worth of examples where low activity players do just fine. Of course, we've all had inactivity mishaps. Sometimes it happens, but that's merely an error in strategy, nothing else.

Mount & Blade Warband had a follow party mechanic and it was incredibly useful. No idea how you'd implement it in M&F, but it's something that has been discussed in the past and is certainly worth raising again.

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22:34 - Roran Hawkins: Radovid's like you22:34 - Roran Hawkins: but then insane22:34 - Roran Hawkins: Dijkstra is like you

So what, you all fight without a battle plan or objectives? Just throwing armies after armies on someone and expect them to roll over and die? If you do things this way, no amount of activity will ever decide a war. I suppose having a tool that makes a proper battleplan would be a decent addition to combat the activity issues.

Also, the example I gave is not the only one. This happened plenty of times. The only person who needs to be online 24/7 is the 'catcher'. The rest just check in once in a while, and make sure they are going the right direction. I am sure De-Legro, who has had a lot more fights than me can write two pages worth of examples where low activity players do just fine. Of course, we've all had inactivity mishaps. Sometimes it happens, but that's merely an error in strategy, nothing else.

No, but when you have to invade an area and take a bunch of different estates, it's a bit safer to stay together, don't you think? There's a battleplan, but they have to adapt to changing circumstances. I don't haphazardly throw care into the winds and say that we're going to A then B then C then D, only to have issues at B or C that stops us, while other people would continue on and make it 100x worse.

Or you are just targeting A and B, but something significant happens along the way. It's nice it works for you. It really doesn't work for every scenario.

Please don't be facetious. Assist action just gets you destroyed if your timing is not ideal and your enemy is more active and not dumb. War is all about opportunity and maneuvres. You need to be there to change your destination when the enemy moves. You need to be there to start travelling in time to get to the battle in time when it starts in the first place. You need to be there to start a timely retreat and not get caught by regrouping enemies if you failed the previous action. Come on, we all play this game and know how fighting plays out when you can't check on it constantly. I don't know who's being fooled by this "few minutes a day" thing. It's like we're not playing the same game. smh